Transcript: Should We Take a Multivitamin?

About 1 in 3 Americans takes a multivitamin. Is that helpful, harmful, or just a harmless waste of money? In 2011, the Iowa Women’s Health Study reported that multivitamin use was associated with a higher risk of total mortality, meaning in effect women who took a multivitamin appeared to be paying to live shorter lives. But this was an observational study, meaning they didn’t split them up into two groups and put half on multivitamins to see who lived longer, they just followed a large population of women over time and found those that happened to be taking multivitamins were more likely to die. But maybe they were taking multivitamins because they were sick. The researchers didn’t find any evidence of that, but ideally we’d have a randomized double-blind placebo controlled trial, thousands followed for over a decade. Half given a multivitamin and half a placebo and see what happens, and that’s what we got the following year in 2012. The Harvard Physicians’ Study II. And after a decade no effect on heart attack, stroke, or mortality.

The accompanying editorial concluded that multivitamins are a distraction from effective cardiovascular disease prevention. The message needs to remain simple and focused: heart disease can be largely prevented by healthy lifestyle changes.

They did, however, find that for men with a history of cancer, the multivitamin appeared to be protective against getting cancer again, though there was no significant difference in cancer mortality or cancer protection in those who’ve never had cancer before. Still, though, that’s pretty exciting. It is just one study, though, ideally we’d have like 20 of these placebo-controlled trials and then compile all the results together, and that’s what we got in 2013, a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Twenty-one of them, covering more than 90,000 individuals and no influence on mortality either way. Some found more cancer mortality, some found less cancer mortality, but all and all it was a wash.

And that was heralded as good news. After the Iowa Women’s Health Study came out we were worried multivitamins could be harming millions of people, but instead they don’t appear to have much effect either way. The accompanying editorial asked should meta-analyses trump observational studies? I mean Iowa Women’s Health Study followed tens of thousands of women for nearly 20 years. What if we put all the studies together? The big observational studies along with the experimental trials? And that’s what we got December 2013, concluding that multivitamins appear to offer no consistent evidence of benefit for heart disease, cancer, or living longer.

Why though? Aren’t vitamins and minerals good for us? One explanation for this result could be that our bodies are so complex that the effects of supplementing a few components is generally ineffective or actually does harm. Maybe we should get our nutrients in the way nature intended.

The accompanying editorial concluded enough is enough, we should stop wasting our money on vitamin and mineral supplements. Americans spend billions on vitamin and mineral supplements. A better investment in health would be eating more fruits and vegetables. Imagine if instead we spent those billions on healthy food?

This is not the aisle we should be getting our nutrients from. With the money we save on pills we can buy more of the best multivitamins on Earth.

To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and quotes to which Dr. Greger may be referring, watch the above video. This is just an approximation of the audio contributed by Ariel Levitsky.

If you haven't yet, you can subscribe to my videos for free by clicking here.

To post comments or questions into our discussion board, first log into Disqus with your NutritionFacts.org account or with one of the accepted social media logins. Click on Login to choose a login method. Click here for help.

Interesting video… I’ll experiemnt with taking a multi but only once a week rather than everyday (as a mental reassurance). What about B12, Vit D and Iodine, the vitamins vegans are encouraged to take?

guest

What about the added vitamin E to vegan DHA?

Aaron

Dr Fuhrman has the best multi. It has B-12, sufficient Vitamin D and Iodine. he leaves of certain vitamins that may be harmful in isolated forms

JD

dr fuhrman is in the business of selling supplements. You don’t need them if you eat a WFPB diet. Just B12 and D

Mark R. Mach

Why take D if you can make it yourself?

Thea

Mark: A lot of people live in areas where they do not get enough of the right kind of sunlight to be able to make adequate vitamin D ourselves. And then there are the kind of people, like me, who spend most days inside, especially during the noonday sun.

B12 and D are vitamins vegans and non-vegans are lacking in. It is difficult to get the proper amounts even from eating healthy foods. I get all my other nutrients from my plant based diet, but I do alternate between vegan sublingual B12 and spirulina/chlorella to make sure I get enough B12. Again most/many people are lacking in D also. It is best to get D from sun exposure but many of us who are living in colder climates or because it is winter time don’t get enough sun exposure. In this case Sublingual D supplements is better than not getting vitamin D. Basskills I assume you are a vegan, as I am a vegan. I don’t do multivitamins. I just eat a well rounded calorie dense wholefood plant based diet. The way I approach my diet I haven’t been sick in over 2 years since adopting a plant based diet.

I completely agree. Being a vegan carries a certain stigma with it in the U.S. But with some planning and creativity a vegan diet can be almost completely nutritionally adequate. As you mentioned, a few supplements are necessary to “fill in the gaps.” B12, Vitamin D, and even calcium and iron levels could benefit from supplementation, largely due to the bioavailability. With that being said many people are at the very least moderately deficient in vitamin D. In fact, approximately 60% of my patient population requires a supplement. This video has some good pointers on how to get the most bang for your buck when taking a Vitamin D supplement. http://nutritionfacts.org/video/take-vitamin-d-supplements-with-meals/

Ss

Watch out for spurilana and cholera maybe contaminated with heavy metals. If you are going that route, be sure to check the sources stay safe.

I think it is important to note that the December 2013 meta-analysis, as far as multivitamins, actually only analyzed one study – and that was the Physicians’ Health Study mentioned earlier in the video. The rest were studies of supplements containing only one or just a few nutrients. So we still don’t really have that much info.(http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/multivitamins.aspx) That being said, I think this would all make more sense to the general public if we could clarify the goal of multivitamins – the point of eating healthy food is to prevent heart disease and cancer; the point of supplements (including multivitamins) is different – it is insurance against deficiency, since there is no such thing as a perfect diet.

Tom

The trick/difficulty is that not only is hard hard to always eat healthy, but it’s been reported that our food isnn’t as nutrient rich as it was years ago. So, what’s a person to do? I’m in charge of the juicer in our house and we do lots of green juices in hopes to get the nutrients.

yardplanter

True, there is no perfect diet, nor perfect science, clinicals, cars, houses, pets, jobs, significant others. But there are multitudes of perfectly satisfactory and more than adequate examples of each.

But you do have a point, more than , what ? , 100,000 subjects with all the data pointing in the same direction ( no significant benefit ) could be misguided. So let’s get on with the business of showing that MV prevent deficiencies better than WF.

Hi Deana,
The point of eating healthy food is to load up on natural synergistic combinations of vitamins, minerals, fats, carbs, fiber, and phytonutrients to prevent heart disease and cancer. The point of taking supplements is for the same reason, in case we are not eating enough good foods to get all the nutrients we need, supplements will fill in. It appears the study is saying that supplements really don’t make a difference, and that we need to get our nutrients from real food like fruits and vegetables to protect against disease.

Julia Kravets

I agree. These studies show that multivitamins don’t prevent cancer and heart disease. Those are pretty big things to prevent for a small pill, which is why diet is so important. But not everyone can eat a wholly nutritious diet all the time. These nutrient gaps can cause a host of problems like acne, brittle hair and nails, poor eyesight, and weak immune system. A quality multivitamin can plug in the nutrition gaps and that prevent those things. While it’s true that a people who eat tons of fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds probably don’t need a multivitamin; it’s just not the case for most Americans.

Timar

Actually the study (PHSII) *does* show that multivitamins prevent cancer, even in a well-nourished, highly educated population of physicians (RR 0.92, P=0.04), and this finding was *not* limited to those with a history of cancer. To quote directly from the abstract:

“Daily multivitamin use was associated with a reduction in total cancer among 1312 men with a baseline history of cancer (…), but this did not differ significantly from that among 13 329 men initially without cancer (…). Conclusion In this large prevention trial of male physicians, daily multivitamin supplementation modestly but significantly reduced the risk of total cancer.”http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23162860

Further investigations from the same trial found that the multivitamin also siginificantly decreased the risk of age-related macular degeneration (RR 0.91, P=0.04) and a non-significant but nevertheless remarkable reduction in all-cause mortality (RR 0.94, P=0.13).

Curious why there was no response to this interesting comment; this seems to pretty directly contradict at least the spirit of Dr. Greger’s video and despite all the confirmatory comments above provide some evidence for the claims made. I’d be interested in the counter arguments from those arguing for the inefficacy of supplements. Which is not to say that I’m not convinced that a healthy diet is the most important lifestyle choice.

Timar

Hi Karl. I totally agree with anyone saying that diet and exercise are by far the most important lifestyle choices. In fact, the benefits the PHSII and some other trials found for low/medium-dose multivitamin supplements seem paltry compared to the risk reductions we consistently see for a healthy diet and physical activity. But given that the PHSII participants were well-educated and followed a relatively healthy lifestyle (compared to the avarage American) and still benefited from a cheap a-nickel-a-day multivitamin should keep us from simply dismissing multivitamins as a waste of money. To the contrary, the cost-benefit (in terms of money as well as effort) and risk-benefit relation seems extremely favorable, even compared to those much more important lifestyle choices which, however, take time, effort and some money to realize. This is certainly a caveat about supplements. If people take them as an easy substitution for a healthy diet, they are deceiving themselves and would probably be better off without the supplements and the false sense of security they derive from them. This psychological mechanism is even a possible confounding factor in epidemiological studies of supplements and can only be excluded by a placebo-controlled interventional study like the PHSII.

I agree with Dr. Rhonda Patricks take on the recent “Enough is enough” editorial:

Thank you very much for sharing this video and your viewpoint. Thank you for indulging some speculation I make here. Whenever a vitamin is discovered, people go crazy for it, they start taking it in large doses, it has a very positive effect on health, until doctors put a stop to it. This happened with Vitamin D, Iodine, maybe Germanium, and now is happening with Vitamin E. Vitamin E was being taken in 1000 percent RDA doses… until they found out this can cause certain cancer. The problem is very people who say it caused cancer (Harvard) are now saying it is extremely preventative of those certain cancers, to the tune of a 40 percent reduction. There is probably very weak evidence that Vitamin E can cause cancer, and some evidence that it can prevent it. Yet still, the large dose Vitamin E pills have been replaced with much smaller doses. I have as an opinion that research positive to vitamins is not published, creating a black hole in which this editorial is placed. There were many studies on intravenous use of Vitamin C for in large doses (many grams) for cancer to come out in 2014. They were not published, only a study on how Vitamin C makes cancer treatments more tolerable. There were several studies being conducted. Given the climate, if the results were negative or even neutral, they surely would have been published. What do you do when pro vitamin research is not published? What would you do if pro-vitamin research was not published? I can only speculate that many vitamin studies are not published and are unable to find homes. Spurious benefits of vitamins go unreported, making medicine as a study of deficiencies without a foundation. There were thousands of D3 and cancer research studies launched. I don’t think you will necessarily see the results. If you have any chronic disease, you can put your disease and “vitamins” into the internet and, if you read the first 20 results or 2 pages, you might have a viable treatment. Thank you for sharing this video, because I thought doctors hate vitamins. They are not profitable for drug companies and they are a black hole because they are a fundamental substance with no other alternative product. I don’t think doctors like thinking about one and only one product for an illness instead of a class of drugs. Heart disease is America’s number one killer. Vitamin E in large doses can treat Angina and other aspects of heart disease. If Vitamin E was so popular, why does America have a problem with heart disease? Has Vitamin E represented a savings to heart doctors? Is it possible doctors lose patients and prescriptions to vitamins?

Yann

Dr. Greger, what about Vitamin-D and B-12? Might they be useless in a “capsule” form?

Taking sublingual D and B-12 is better better is goes right into the bloodstream

Adrien

I think it is important to remember that Dr Greger support the use of supplements. But not every one: B12 is mandatory for vegans, and vitamin D if your are defficient in sunlight (test your blood). He also suggest that DHA from algae can be beneficial. I leave you with Dr Greger’s recommandation and his videos.

Yes! I whole heartedly agree. Thanks again.
This reminded me of when I was in the pharmacy the other day, they had loads of vitamin pills located right next to the rack of chips, chocolate bars and candy – not really a place supporting healthy lifestyle!

pm

The studies failed to distinguish between the type of multivitamin and mineral supplementation. Most over the counter pharmaceutical brands, like centrum, aren’t effective because they contain synthetic forms of the vitamins and minerals, which may be toxic and have absorption issues.

Another flaw with these studies critical of supplementation has to do with dosages of vitamins and minerals. The RDA of all vitamin and minerals is too low to meet the full requirements needed by the body for health and disease prevention effects measured in this so called research.

Ravi K

I completely agree with you on this. All of these studies used store brand crap like Centrum. Yeah with those you are wasting your money.

guest

For the most part, all multi-vitamims contain vitamin E, and Dr. Greger has a video saying we should not be supplementing with any vitamin E.

I sort of think this alone makes taking a multi-vitamin a no-no, according to this website.

Ravi K

There are multivitamins and then there are whole food supplements :-).

Soaring Falcon

This is an imperative point. It troubles me that Dr. Greger didn’t point-out this / these glaring failure of the studies. He knows most vitamins come from sources that can be less-than-healthful. I hope it was just an oversight ?? and not convenient for him to overlook the studies deficiencies since they fit into his paradigm. Another dent on absolute honesty in reporting …

guest

For the most part, all multi-vitamims contain vitamin E, and Dr. Greger has a video saying we should not be supplementing with any vitamin E.

I sort of think this alone makes taking a multi-vitamin a no-no, according to “nutrition facts.org”.

puntloos

Indeed the thing missing in this discussion is preventing deficiencies. Mild deficiencies aren’t life threatening even in the long run, and that was what these studies were looking for.

If you are prone to deficiencies (hint: if you’re eating a roughly western diet: you are.) then eat a supplement, but there’s little point to do ‘across the board’ vitamins.

Try to be specific to what you are deficient in, esp given that some vitamins are toxic if you overdose.. if you already get enough, don’t take more…

Robin D. Everson

Great video, good information and the focus back to the things we should be taking into our bodies (fruits and veggies).

Soaring Falcon

Robin, if you have ever performed a scientific investigation … the framing of the questions … and the issues and framing of the results makes all the difference in the world on the results. These were significantly flawed studies in that they did not segregate wholistic food source vitamins as a sub-group with separate out-comes than oil-based vitamins or vitamins that were created with excess heat; chemicals, etc.

Thomas Gardner

Hi Dr. Greger,

I’m a new member on your site, and I am enjoying it quite a bit. I’m a strict vegan for three years. Even though I ate a fairly healthy diet pre-vegan, I had very poor lipid panels. Three supplements that I take have solid beneficial effects that I lose when I stop taking them. I have arthritic hands and knees, and I take triple strength osteobiflex, 4000mg of fish oil with sesamin and astaxanthin, and 1000mg (2x) of turmeric with 10mg of bioperine with each 1000mg turmeric capsule. I also take sublingual B12 and a good D supplement.

1) My triglycerides are way down since I started the fish oil supplements two years ago, and scientific research associated with Lovaza shows this to be effective. I like what I’m taking better than Lovaza, even though my insurance company covers Lovaza but won’t cover my fish oil supplements.

2) My joint pain is much better and has become a non-issue in my life. And I don’t take any medication for it. I used to take alleve regularly and prescription arthritis meds when it got bad. If I stop taking the osteobiflex (I travel on business and sometimes forget to take it with me) the joint pain returns. Also, the joint pain did not go away completely until I added the turmeric/bioperine. The combination of osteobiflex, fish oil and turmeric/bioperine are 100% effective in eliminating my hand and knee pain.

3) The health benefits of the turmeric go way beyond joint pain. My fingernails and toenails are healthy and attractive now, and all the strange patterns, chips, hangnails and weak cuticles are flat-out gone. My eyebrows are thicker, and I feel better overall. These cosmetic hair and nail benefits were unexpected and undeniable.

4) The world around me is sick. Everyone in my office has had a bad cold, bronchitis, and/or bad influenza, even though everybody got flu shots. Knock on wood, I haven’t been sick a day since adding the turmeric to my diet.

In the first year of my vegan diet, my lipid panels went from 30% above borderline to just below borderline. After adding Fish Oil, triglycerides plummeted. I lost 20 pounds and LDL dropped another 20 points. I added the turmeric/bioperine and now my LDL is at about 90 (pre-vegan it was 240) and my HDL and triglycerides are much improved as well. Overall, I feel twenty years younger than my 60 years.

I am convinced that the supplements that i take are all critically important to my health along with my vegan diet and my exercise program. I wouldn’t change a thing.

Thanks

guest

Is vitamin E safe to take? All multi-vitamins I am aware of contain vitamin E, and you have a video in your archive suggesting/saying to not take supplemental vitamin E. Based on this, I feel it is safe to assume that you would not recommend anyone take a multi-vitamin that contained vitamin E, unless their health and or situation somehow warranted it, or for whatever reason trumped your belief that we should not be supplementing with E. I have not been able to find a quality multivitamin that does not contain vitamin E. And the science against taking vitamin E has been published in many places outside of here as well.

yes, but his DHA supplement does contain vitamin E “mixed tocopherols”….and in supplement form it has been advised by Dr. Greger that it is likely prudent not to ingest vitamin E.

Scott

Maybe it’s just me, but I found it difficult to get all the minerals required in my mainly plant-based-diet to sustain the enamel in my teeth. If I don’t supplement with a multivitamin my teeth get chalky and stained. I’ve also had to supplement with calcium since I also refrain from dairy and don’t drink a lot of almond milk or other foods that are fortified with calcium. Every diet is different, but mine tends to be high in citric and phytic acid, which is another contributing factor to the daily tight rope I walk to maintain my tooth enamel.

sarah

One problem I have with these studies is they pre-suppose the purpose of a multi-vitamin is heart-health or longevity, when in fact I take vitamins for quality of life: that is, for energy and vitality. And on that basis I find them to be pretty damn excellent — especially the whole food based vitamins.

Jason C Venckus

I am always looking for someone that agrees with me. I just convinced my wife that she does not need a calcium supplement during pregnancy because we eat a lot of foods high calcium. We are vegans but she has been craving cheese. So in addition i’ve been feeding her plenty of greens, beans, almonds, organic tofu and have her using organic molasses.

What is her specific concern regarding calcium intake during pregnancy?

Jason C Venckus

That she is not getting enough because we are vegan. I am a holistic health coach so she wants to believe me but I am also her husband so she finds it hard to trust my advice. I am close on this one with her. I hold some merit because I solved her allergy problems with green tea and raw local honey.

DGH

How would green tea and raw local honey solve an allergy problem?
W.R.T. calcium and pregnancy, I would check the veganhealth.org website, or post a question to Jack Norris – jacknorrisrd.com (he runs both sites).

Jason C Venckus

Green tea and raw local honey help the body produce it’s own natural antihistamines. My wife had horrible allergy attacks that would just put her out. She has not had one in over 8 months since using this combination 4-5 days a week.

b00mer

Have you ever tallied up the numbers for her with something like cronometer? Before I did myself, I had some little nagging worries re: zinc, calcium and iron. Those nutrients that you “hear” vegans tend to be deficient in. I wanted to believe when various experts would say that as long as the diet is relatively varied and nutrient-dense I would get everything I needed (except of course B12 and D), but seeing the numbers there in black and white is what really put me at ease.

Thea

Jason: Have you heard of Vegetarian Resource Group (VRG)? They are a group that is very careful about the information they present. I don’t always agree with everything they post, but it is generally a good site. The following page contains a link to a .pdf document brochure which talks about pregnant women as well as a link to an article on another page on the site:http://www.vrg.org/family/kidsindex.htm

D is fine. We eat foods high in D and she has a job that has her outside a lot. We do supplement if we feel any illness coming on with a Vegan spray.

DGH

I am very cautious about subgroup analysis, as time and again they have failed when replicated in prospective hypothesis-directed trials. One can think of many examples of this phenomenon. The PHS II found an *overall* cancer benefit across the entire population. The researchers then went into the study and tried to tease out which subpopulations had more or less benefit, but trials aren’t powered or designed to really do that, and subtyping by previous malignancy does not make a lot of sense, because many patients who appear to be asymptomatic are harboring occult malignancies (in fact, we all have cancer cells within us). If I recall correctly, the interaction p value by history of malignancy was not statistically positive, but I could be wrong on that. Bottom line: PHS II does show a small but significant reduction in cancers, and this same trial also showed a statistically significant large reduction in fatal MI. I don’t tell people to take multivitamins but those who are taking them (at least males), I encourage them with this news.

Vegans are a special group that is not well represented in multivitamin trials. We need targeted vitamins in somewhat higher doses than are found in MV’s.

Michael

I think the concern is that if people take a multivitamin they might not try as hard to eat vitamin rich foods (plants). However, in introducing people to a plant based diet a multivitamin can provide some peace of mind that potential gaps are being filled with the pill. This could help people transition to a plant based diet or stick with it. The second most popular concern I hear after protein is micronutrient adequacy in a plant based diet. Maybe a multivitamin can ease some of that concern for those interested in switching.
Of course B12 supplementation is mandatory and a long chain omega 3 fatty acid supplement is recommended.

mrhoagie

Soils are mineral depleted compared to previous decades. These studies as already expressed primarily use synthetic, man-made, right handed molecular supplements as opposed to whole food based left handed molecular supplement that contain phytonutrients too.

A an Iowa state professor once told Charles Walters, founder and editor of ACRES USA magazine, “for $100,000 dollars I can prove anything” meaning that, depending upon whom is funding a study will often predetermine the results. The studies I have read by a whole food company like Standard Process of Wisconsin give different results compared to the imitation, synthetics typically used.

fracritel

Hi
Whenever they do these studies usually they are done with cheap,low dosage, synthetic vitamins which the body does not recognize or assimilate

mely

I am using products from The synergy Company, because Idon’t like cheap symthetically produced supplements because of the fillers, and other ingredients. So far so good!

Sebastian Tristan

Could you please review studies on oat bran? Usually we’re told to eat whole foods, but oat bran seems to have a better nutrition profile than whole oats. I wonder if that translates into better health effects.

“Imagine if instead we spent those billions on healthy food?”
That may be bad, prices may go up up up up….. or down?

naturodoc

Hi Doc. Your video and the studies raise interesting points. However, while one of the points made was that multivitamins are a distraction from focusing on eating well, exercising, etc I also feel that studies like these on multivitamins can cause people to turn away from other, more specific supplements, some of which have shown incredibly positive effects. Here are some examples:http://www.healthstudiescollegium.org/docf/HSC_BFCD6CardioprotectiveNutrients.pdf

I believe the research on Vit D is significant in terms of disease prevention I wouldn’t throw the baby out with the bath water.

Wade Patton

D and B12 are routinely recommended by Dr. Greger for those of us eating WFPB. I take them each. B12 once per week and D3 according to my exposure each day. It’s really easy.

william doubleday

can anyone recommend a good multivitamin for men?

Brenda

I can recommend to you one of the most balanced out there and it has nothing in it that nature has not provided. Company has been around for over 58 years with never a product recall. Send me a reply if you would like to read about it. pabranco@fuse.net

Curious and would like to know if there have there been any long-term studies/trials that actually prove that eating real food fruits and vegetables protect against heart disease, cancer, diabetes, etc – more so than multi? any comparative studies?

There are a number of factors to consider here. Is the nutrition we expect to be actually present in our food? How do we know what kind of soil it was grown in, how long it was stored, whether cooking destroyed any of the nutrition etc. Also, how do we know our body actually takes up the nutrition we provide for it? There are a number of health issues like Coeliac Disease that interfere with absorption. Multivitamins should be plant based not synthetic too. Many nutrients are only absorbed when in the presence of certain others so giving big doses of synthetic single nutrients may result in them passing through

Brenda

Videos like this annoy me! The bigger questions should be: Who did the randomized studies and what TYPE of supplements were being used. As I whole heartedly agree that diet is extremely important to a healthy lifestyle and that supplements are no replacement for a poor diet, but what about the choices as far as diet goes too??? Did they do a background check on the people taking the supplements as far as their diets and what type of supplements were being used? Were they using the tens of thousands of SYNTHETIC supplements out there today that actually do DO more harm than good? I really just shake my head when I see videos like this… they are just not fully researched for one thing, because if you want them, I can show you over 100 peer reviewed medical journal studies that prove that vitamin supplementation works. Check out Shaklee Corporations Landmark Study, done by Gladys Block, ( a very reknowned epidemiologist) and by the way is the only Landmark Study out there that shows that supplements do improve health? (LandmarkStudy.com) They compared people taking multiple Shaklee supplements for over 20 years to people taking random multi vitamins and people taking nothing. The average age was 62 AND the results were better than our scientists ever thought. They tested markers such as C- reactive protein, triglycerides, cholesterol and so much more. So before you snuff out the vitamin issue, please make sure everything is researched. If our diets were so impeccable, we wouldn’t have the obesity pandemic or the “diseases” that we have today and we wouldn’t be ranked 49th in overall health in the world being a country that spends more per person on healthcare than any other country in the world to boot. Time to take control of our own health!

Brenda

P.S. I am 56 years old, I have lived organically and taken supplements my whole life. I have not had a drug, not even an aspirin in my body since the birth of my 24 year old son, and that was only because I had a C-section. As good as I think I eat on a daily basis, I still don’t get everything every day. Therefore, supplements, which are a supplement to your healthy diet, fill in the voids on a daily basis for me. I bike, weight train, run, work out and can complete with 20 year olds, so I will never be convinced that supplements don’t work. And for any athlete, the nutrients you burn up need to be replaced, and you can’t eat enough to get everything you need.

Linda N

Amen Brenda!!

DoctorDave

Anyone out there still confused? I am. This is so because virtually all of the study participants in these huge meta-analyses were eating a standard american diet. Thus, the conclusions really should say “Multivitamins offer little or no value to those eating a standard american diet.” So, given the gross inadequacies in the participant’s diets, they still offered little or no value – so much for fixing diets with multivitamins. Further, the little value that they seemed to offer to some cancer patients could be vastly improved upon if they simply would adopt a low fat, whole food, plant-only diet.

Products like multivitamins always come from fear mongering and the sales pitch always sounds like an insurance program (Gee, am I getting enough?). Forget about multivitamins. Fix your food choices first, then trust God, nature, or whatever that your food will be adequate. Many studies and extended clinical practice have already clearly shown that it will be (see PCRM’s Kickstarter Program if you are healthy, or Dr McDougall’s resident programs if you are already sick).

Everyone out there please remember to ask – what was the gross background diet that the subjects were eating? Adding multivitamins to an inadequate diet, or any diet, to fix it is like giving a man dying of thirst some vinegar. If there is anything in the last decade that we have learned it is that here is a lot more in food that we need than a fairly short list of synthetic, concentrated vitamins and/or minerals. Another thing that we have learned is that we vegans do need B12 and vitamin D, from natural sources as much as possible. Let’s trust our low fat, whole food, organic vegan diets for the rest.

Bob Stein

What is your opinion of the research reports done by the Life Extension Foundation? The articles they publish in their magazine look well researched and endnoted but their work often does not agree with yours.

Ali

I wonder if all the vitamins and minerals used in the trial were laboratory produced and not from food sources.

Ilana125

What about if my dr tells me to take a mult because I’m low on iron? (I’m already vegan and eat lots of veggies.)

Wade Patton

Because most doctors are clueless as to which foods are good for what and have zero reason to believe that their patients are any smarter. There are a few videos here on that.

RK

Hello Doc!

I just came across a rebuttal to that article you mentioned “Enough is enough’ by Dr. Rhonda Patrick, a Ph.D in biomedical science and expert on nutritional health. I would really appreciate if you took few minutes of your time to view this rebuttal and offer your opinion! (if it was some random person talking about this, I would not bother)

Hey!!!! What happened to my question to doc???
Reg rebuttal by Rhonda Patrick….. can I please know why it was deleted?!!

Tommasina

Hey RK, Sorry about that, it had gotten stuck in the spam filter! Comments with links sometimes do. I released it so it should be up now. Thanks!

RK

no worries… thanks for releasing it.

RK

I tried to re-submit… pls feel free to delete one of them if you wish. Thanks!

RK

(Okay, I’ll try again)

Hi Doc,

Please take a few minutes to see a rebuttal of the mentioned article ‘

Enough Is Enough: Stop Wasting Money on Vitamin and Mineral Supplements’ by Dr. Rhonda Patrick who is Ph.D in biomedical science and expert
on nutritional health. — http://youtu.be/o0u8UdZeOhc

Really appreciate your feedback.

Many thanks!

RK

Eskil J.

What does this mean for fortified foods and drinks? That supplementation in general doesn’t provide any conclusive health benefits? Or just multivitamins?

Simeon Long

hmmm im confused. What if the multivitamin has vitamins b12 or D2 in them… arent we recomended to take these supplements? Went to my local healthfood store today and they were out of B12 and they recomended me a multivitamin… it says 100 procent daily dosage of B12 on the back… shouldnt the control groups have reeped the benifits of atleast B12 and D2… sorry im probably missing something important here. Please help :-)) (by the way been taking alot of your advice for about the last 3 weeks now… its been alot of fun sofar and i really feel great!)

Wade Patton

Taking “everything” to get “something included” surely beats deficiency. But since WFPB eaters can only be deficient in 2 areas…why bother. Why buy at any store? Get what you want with a few mouse clicks.

igbymac

Obviously multivitamins are not all the same. Studies of random people taking random MVMMs over random time-frames are meaningless.

Much time and wasted ink could have been saved had the author turned his mind toward what was being recorded, rather than shilling against supplementation.

The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) stated:

“Most people do not consume an optimal amount of all vitamins by diet alone … it appears prudent for all adults to take vitamin supplements,” states the article by Robert H. Fletcher, MD, MSc and Kathleen M. Fairfield, MD, DrPH, both affiliated with Harvard Medical School.”

Enough said. Do your own research.

Wade Patton

This argument is just as flawed as nutritional recommendations by the USDA.

igbymac

Explain the USDA argument, or assertion then. If you honestly do not know that you, and we all, need the very best vitamin and mineral and anti-oxidant supplementations we can acquire because our diets — regardless of how good we believe them to be — are scientifically unable to support health and ward off 70+ chronic degenerative diseases, then lord have mercy.

It’s irrefutable scientifically and out of the sheer power of propaganda or the disinterest to know, you remain in the dark. I urge you to come out of Plato’s Cave and open your mind to learn what is really going on.

Wade Patton

I have already turned my health around based on a single pivotal move, and 20 plus years of amateur study of very many learned doctors. Supplements have nothing to do with it. WFPB living does. Inside my cave there are brilliant lights powered by water and wind and our star. Thank you for your concern. I shall not chase down the Rabbit Hole.

igbymac

Of course you are absolutely right – a WFPB organic diet is the cornerstone of health. Too bad that food alone can’t compete with the toxins we face, known and seen, as well as the unknown.

If you are like most people, you are constantly bombarded with electromagnetic and wifi signals, as well as things like chemicals emitted from the paint on the wall, etc. The invisible radiation effects alone mean that our nutritional needs are far beyond our parents or grandparents.

Don’t forget a supplement is just that – an adjunct to even the best WFPB organic diet. Don’t be so certain you have it figured out after allowing your body to get into a state of disrepair 20 years ago — try investigating the real science further.

Kind of a “sideways” question. I read that high levels of B12 are associated with an increased risk of prostate cancer ( my affliction). Could it be that one reason a vegan diet is effective in the control of prosate cancer is the inherent constraint on B12 levels? If I should be limiting B12 in order to constrain my cancer, but must have it to be otherwise healthy, then what should I do about B12 supplemetation and what level of B12′ however measured, should be my target?

CXjedi

One thing i would like to see from this study is if they could rate each person diet and then compare the results with the type of diet that they had. So if they had a crappy diet would it overwhelm the one multivitamin that they were taking? Probably so. What is the effect on a persons life on a plant base diet with and with out Vitamins? I think that those results would have a bigger impact on people and getting them to stop eating all of the obeseagens (yes its a made up word for fast food)

Anthea

Very interesting. Is it possible to find out what they were taking? Many multivitamins out there are complete rubbish, but there are a handful that are meant to be very effective. Were they use the top grade multivitamins or not?

Well, if Vitamin D and b12 are recommended, what about the need for k2 found in animal meat? Should we supplement with that along with D3? I am hearing from many professionals in nutrition that D can be very harmful without K2, because k2 essentially directs it where to go in your body. I get those 3 from a WHOLE FOODS multivitamin once a day all in one, from New Chapter. Is this expensive pee too? Because I could really use the break on my finances and they’re not exactly fun to swallow. Also, I should add I am primarily vegetarian, but do have pescatarian tendencies.I find being vegan very challenging.

pat

Your doctor can test your vitamin D and B-12 levels and tell you if you need more or less. I don’t know about vitamin K2, though.

I’ve been tested, went the shot route etc etc. You should look up the need for K2 along with vitamin D. Without it it’s like a confused vitamin D.

terry

I take a multi vitamin..i turn crabby..i quit I was fine..don’t know why…

lemonhead

Natto is good stuff if you can get it. It has other interesting things in it besides K2. I have to start trying to make my own since I don’t like the styrofoam packaging. By ‘good stuff’ I mean nutritious; it is definitely an acquired taste. I like it with English-style spicy mustard.

Jerry

Does anyone have any input on Youngevity Products, like their “Beyond Tangy Tangerine” and/or other products?

Chris

I dont think anyone takes a multi in hopes of preventing cancer,CVD or any disease. I take one only as a preventative to a possible missing piece in my nutritional puzzle. If you are in fact holding your deck of cards thinking one single little pill will stop the Dr of Death from knocking at your door….well then, your a clown.

Shaylen Snarski

I eat extremely healthy and rely on whole plant foods for my nutrients, but I take a whole foods based multi vitamin everyday to ensure that I don’t fall short in certain essential nutrients… I can’t see how I could possibly get the recommended daily value of selenium and zinc, etc. without completely stuffing my face all hours of the day which is obviously not something I want to do. If soil wasn’t so depleted of nutrients, I think the many plants that I eat everyday would be enough, but sadly I just see the multivitamin as a good insurance policy. Isn’t that true?

lemonhead

I use an app called cronometer, and I find it difficult to get the RDA for a lot of vitamins and minerals, but not selenium and zinc There’s lots of selenium is in brazil nuts, wheat germ and some brands of brewer’s yeast (though I know wheat germ is probably not recommended by this site as it is not a whole food). Zinc can be found in whole wheat (or wheat germ); pumpkin seeds also have a lot, though I find it difficult to find non-moldy raw seeds at the store.

The nutrients I have real trouble with are some of the b-vitamins: B3, B5, B6 and even folate. Most of the leafy greens I eat don’t contain much folate at all, only spinach is particularly rich in folate – I get more folate from lentils. Lentils are really great for a lot of things; to me they are a true ‘superfood’. Other rich sources of folate are pinto beans, chickpeas, and asparagus. Of the minerals, I can never get enough potassium.

Green-Health True-North

What is the science behind Vitamin A anybody help nothing showing anywhere Thanks in advance

TheHulk

Why would anyone ever supplement on Vitamin A is beyond me. A single Sweet Potato approx 110 grams yields over 300% of the RDA for vitamin A! That’s surely cheaper and safer then anything in the pill form.

Helga

as a biologist I can say that our ancestors doesn’t actually live in the perfect environment for them. Almost nobody in normal ecosystem is, it’s the part of natural selection and how the ecosystem gets the best usage of recourses – everybody has just little more than they have to not die.

And thus we cannot just take 100% vegan diet as a perfect choice only because apes do it, unless we won’t live 15-25 year to death, because that’s what they have in times when we were close to them.

Optimal environment and diet would be much better than average for our ancestors.

So the question is “how to get the best result?”, not “what diet was normal for us before we became so rich?”

And occasionally taking supplements is not so bad idea, especially they not do a lot of harm.

Not on everyday basis of course

.
and it’s also a big question about quality and amount of real vitamins in this supplementation they use. Most of modern tablets are not so good as they declare.
I use some production of USA farma and of Russian (facilities left from USSR, product with a nice price and good amount of active compounds) and Russian make a big difference in my self-feeling and sport result, but USA actually was like placebo.
So is it idea of taking vits don’t right, or just your vits don’t work – it’s a good question.
And don’t forget that most cases of death in USA – is about overeating bad food so how vitamins could influence that?
Try again on normally feeding people with good supplements and may be you see the effect.

Previous Video

An editorial by the Director of Yale's Prevention Research Center on putting a face on the tragedy of millions suffering and dying from chronic diseases that could be prevented, treated, and reversed if doctors inspired lifestyle changes in their patients.